The present invention relates generally to life-saving and survival equipment and in particular to a personnel evacuation and anti-exposure device for use by individual crewmen in abandoning a ship in distress.
Cold water shipping operations present unique problems of crew safety and survival in time of disaster. Although it is a relataively simple task to provide the crewmen with devices to prevent drowning, it is most difficult to combat the more severe hazards of cold air exposure and cold water immersion which induce dangerously subnormal body temperatures. Deaths due to cold, rather than drowning, are well documented in maritime history because the water's ability to conduct away body heat causing hypothermia is most efficient, survival time being in terms of minutes. Thus, an inflatable anti-exposure life raft combined with a means for safe rapid escape from an endangered vessel is of prime importance for crew survival in a frigid sea and air environment.
Existing protective equipment does not adequately meet these needs for crewmen escape and survival. For purposes of escape, various types of ramps and slides have been employed, while for survival purposes, many inflatable life rafts have been developed. Although such devices have served their purposes, they have not proven entirely satisfactory under frigid sea conditions for the reasons that difficulties have been experienced in their storage and maintenance as a result of bulky sizes and a frequent need for inspection and in the limited protection afforded by them against cold air exposure and cold water immersion.